That nearly imperturbable youth grunted in return. His hands were steady upon the wheel, but he laughed a little shakily.
Then Julius gazed back into the depths of the car. He could not see much, for the trees at this point were heavily overshadowing the road, but he made out that Ridge Jordan was sitting stiffly in his seat, with—strange to observe!—his head turned toward the front of the car. Behind him the other figures were still and silent. Julius guessed that nobody felt like speaking; he did not feel like it himself. It had been a little too near a thing to discuss at first hand.
Dorothy, her heart beating in a queer, throat-choking way, became conscious that her hand was held close and warm in another hand. An arm that had been about her, whose clasp she had not consciously felt but now remembered, had been withdrawn at the moment that the danger had passed. But evidently—for the car had now gone a quarter of a mile beyond the crucial point and was running smoothly along a wider and less dangerous highway—her hand had been imprisoned in this strange grasp for some time.
She made a gentle but decided effort to withdraw it, an effort which secured its release at once but brought a low question in her ear:
"Are you all right?"
"I—think so," she murmured in reply.
It was not only the shock of the just avoided danger which held her in its grip, but the other and even more startling revelations which had come with it. Her head was whirling, her pulses were thrilling with the conflict of new and strange impressions. Since three minutes ago a new Heaven and an old earth had suddenly shown themselves.
The low voice pressed the question: "Not faint—nor frightened?"
She looked up at him then for an instant, although she could barely see the outlines of his face. "Not with you here," she answered breathlessly, with the impulse toward absolute honesty with which such an experience sometimes shakes the spirit out of its conventionalities.
He was like a statue beside her for the space of six of her heartbeats. Then his hand again found hers, pressed it in both of his, and let it go; and his quiet speech, the note deeper than before, came once more in her ear: